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As long as person X lives and works outside of a circumference with crime points within the circle, we can route them through all those points of crime in the circle going from one edge of the circumference to another on the opposite side.

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The ties are perfectly logical and the exact kind of ties that would inerest the police if they know about them.

We don't know if Cross went to work on the morning of Chapman's murder and, if he did, it's a matter of considerable doubt that he'd have passed through Hanbury Street at the relevant time. Therefore, the "tie" you propose is conjectural, and amounts to little more than "Cross used to walk down Hanbury Street some mornings". Well so did hundreds of others, starting with the residents of Hanbury Street itself, and those who lived in its immediate vicinity.

As far as I can tell, Cross would have had no business being in Berner Street at 1AM on the morning of Stride's death. That his mother lived a few streets away is neither here nor there because, as I've suggested, a Ripper with a handy excuse/alibi of "I was visiting my mother" might have felt inclined to kill rather more victims in that vicinity; as it is, the least Ripper-like murder of the Canon is the only murder that took place there.

Cross would have had no business being around Duke St/Mitre Square at 1:30 or so on the morning of Eddowes' death. No real tie at all, and a true local would have been a more likely candidate for the killer.

Cross would have had no business being around Dorset Street at any of the times usually touted for Kelly's death. No real tie at all, and - again - a true local would be a more likely candidate.

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There's a blast from the past. It's been decades since I read Malthus, but I remember enjoying him. I've got the Penguin paperback of the Essay somewhere; must dust it off.

You can be sure Whitechapel 1888 was close to what he predicted. A famine in parts of major cities in Europe due to overpopulation, poverty and limited resources. Jack the Ripper came along and added a whole new level to the Darwinian natural selection pressures coming on heavy from all directions anyway given the lives they lived. Regular populations spend a century fighting back with CCTV and better forensics. Serial killers find new ways to overcome these hurdles. Just like an arms race, or pathogens beating antibiotics so we have to make new ones. Yeah, Malthus sowed the seeds that woke Darwin and Wallace into a co-discovering of natural selection. They were both reading Malthus at the same time. That is why.

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Yeah, Malthus sowed the seeds that woke Darwin and Wallace into a co-discovering of natural selection. They were both reading Malthus at the same time. That is why.

Indeed, Malthus was quite remarkable. I encountered him as part of a brilliant elective module on the history of evolution which I took at university; apart from Darwin, Malthus and some other texts, the overarching textbook for the course was a fine book called Darwinian Impacts by David Oldroyd, now long out of print. In hindsight, perhaps it should have been called "Malthusian Impacts".

Incidentally, Alfred Russel Wallace used to live in a house five minutes' walk away from me, and designed our town's Institute of Mechanics. Long before my time, of course.

Kind regards, Sam Flynn

"Suche Nullen" (Nietzsche, Götzendämmerung, 1888)

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Indeed, Malthus was quite remarkable. I encountered him as part of a brilliant elective module on the history of evolution which I took at university; apart from Darwin, Malthus and some other texts, the overarching textbook for the course was a fine book called Darwinian Impacts by David Oldroyd, now long out of print. In hindsight, perhaps it should have been called "Malthusian Impacts".

Incidentally, Alfred Russel Wallace used to live in a house five minutes' walk away from me, and designed our town's Institute of Mechanics. Long before my time, of course.

If Malthus was a biologist he would have got the mechanism before them. For the whole book, he describes the struggle for survival and reproduction. He realizes that this will produce a filter where the 'strong' survive and the 'weak' does not. He gives subtle hints at the idea of variation. All Darwin and Wallace had to read was - Struggle for Survival + Reproduction + biological variation = decent with modification, i.e - evolution. Which meant they could explain the origin of every complex biological trait on the planet. Darwin held a rudimentary concept of genes which he called inheritance blending and which Mendel found the solution to in his laws of genetic inheritance eventually. So Malthus was there already and just needed to apply some biological thinking and instead of Darwin it would be Malthus occupying statue space in the Natural History Museum.

Anyway, to tie things back in. A population study of historical Whitechapel in 1888 would probably do well to reference Malthus and how his views predicted how things would be and he wasn't far off.

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Fish, What is it that makes Lechmere the killer? What is in his background or psyche that says "I am Jack the Ripper". Oh and being in Bucks Row does not count. All I see in Lech is a married man with 10-12 kids, who would probably be pretty pleased NOT to be going to work on a bank holiday weekend, never mind going out to kill and work.

He was brought up in the East End's most notorious red light district by a mother whose background was über-respectable. That might have coloured his view of 'unfortunates'.

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If he young lech grew up around a domineering mother and was also surrounded by gore.. well you know.

A bigamist, certainly. I think her involvement in the cat's meat business came later (1890ish), but I suspect her son may have been involved in carting horse flesh from the 1870s.

In 1887, CAL was living in a 6-roomed house near where his mother lived and his family were described as 'v(ery) decent'. Early in 1888, he moved away from the area where he had been brought up, leaving his mother and eldest daughter behind.